Tag Archives: independent on sunday

Caron Lindsay

Norman Lamb quizzed on leadership ambitions by Independent on Sunday

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 8th March 2015 - 4:59 pm

No respectable publication seems to be able to interview any senior male Liberal Democrat these days without asking about their leadership ambitions. The Independent on Sunday was no different but it was slightly irritating that it had to spend half the article writing about a contest that hasn’t even been called yet. To be fair, they are doing it with Tories and Labour too, although not to the same extent. There was a chat on Pienaar’s Politics this morning comparing Yvette Cooper and Theresa May for example.

Anyway, Norman gave that sort of very diplomatic reply which he can do as a very obvious close ally of the leader:

When people raise this with me it inevitably makes you think, in the circumstances envisaged, what would I do?” said Mr Lamb. “I have to answer the question. I’m fiercely loyal to Nick. I always have been, but at some point there will be a further and I will consider the position. I am open-minded about it. My view is if people think well of the job that I’ve done and people then, as a result, conclude they want me to have a go for the top job, then I will consider it.”

What they didn’t mention about Norman is how well respected he is by activists. However people feel about the coalition, they love the work he’s been doing on mental health. Should there be a contest at some point in the future, Lamb is bound to be a strong contender. Of that there is no doubt.

It’s not until you get way down the article that they’ve put in some interesting stuff he has to say about his own brief. It’s clear that he is still full of new ideas:

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 43 Comments
NewsHound

LibLink: Norman Lamb: Let’s ditch the rhetoric and do a deal on the NHS

By NewsHound | Sun 1st February 2015 - 11:30 am

Norman Lamb takes to the pages of today’s Independent on Sunday to make a plea to replace political heat with non-partisan light in the debate over the future of the NHS. He outlines what is currently happening:

Labour is pulling out all the stops to convince voters that the NHS is in crisis – a basket case run by private firms working to destroy it; the party searches for negative statistics and hospital horror stories to fit its narrative. On the other hand, the Conservatives have failed to come up with a plan to meet the £8bn shortfall by 2020 identified by Simon Stevens, the chief executive of the NHS.

But the NHS is far too important to be treated as a political football. The truth is that it’s neither on the verge of disintegration, nor is everything perfect. There are problems, but also triumphs. The majority of patients, for the majority of the time, receive world-class care from dedicated staff.

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Posted in News | Also tagged and | 24 Comments
Newsmoggie

Rose Garden love in “sick inducing” but necessary says Julia Goldsworthy

By Newsmoggie | Mon 17th March 2014 - 4:15 pm

julia-goldsworthyIn an interview in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday, Julia Goldsworthy, former MP  for Falmouth and Camborne and ex Special Adviser to Danny Alexander, had this to say about the Rose Garden love-in on the day the Coalition was formed:

I sat at home watching Nick and David in their first press conference in the Rose Garden. I think probably for a lot of political activists it was quite sick-inducing, but it was absolutely necessary because of the economy and national interest. Coalition was a fairly new thing to get our heads around. It was fairly important to demonstrate that this was a relationship that could work. It was fairly important to ham it up at the start, to show that this was something that was going to last.

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Posted in News | Also tagged | 38 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Farron: It’s Lib Dems v UKIP in European elections

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 2nd March 2014 - 9:43 am

Last year on the eve of Spring Conference, we reported Tim Farron’s controversial interview in House magazine in which he described activists as cockroaches and said the party was in a critical state. He certainly got into a bit of trouble from Them Indoors, but, as Stephen Tall pointed out:

The language is colourful: that’s Tim for you. He could give dull, measured interviews that are risk-free. But it’s not his way. And I don’t think many activists would want him to be anything other than himself. It is precisely because Tim is un-spun, a straight-talker who takes his role

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Caron Lindsay

Alistair Carmichael and Richard Hughes from Keane tell the Independent about their friendship

By Caron Lindsay | Mon 6th May 2013 - 10:59 am

Yesterday’s Independent on Sunday carried an interview with Alistair Carmichael and Richard Hughes from Keane about the friendship they developed after they met on a trip with Amnesty to try to prevent the execution of American Troy Davis in 2009. Sadly, Troy was executed in 2011.

The article captures the bright  and funny personality of one of our most popular MPs, along with his passionate opposition to the death penalty.

Richard Hughes sums him up like this:

Alistair is a passionate guy – it’s one of the things that makes him so charming. And he’s absolutely given me faith in the reason why

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Nick T

“From hero to zero and back again” – Vince Cable profiled in the Independent on Sunday

By Nick T | Mon 1st August 2011 - 10:27 am

Yesterday’s Independent on Sunday featured a profile of business secretary Vince Cable. Vince’s stock certainly appears to risen in recent weeks, his reputation for prescience partially restored by the woes of the Murdoch empire.

But it is his real passion – economics – on which the piece focuses. With the spending review and tuition fees out of the way, what can Vince and his department do to improve the lackluster growth figures?

Well, George Osborne has his Plan A, but Vince has his Plan A+:

“Plan A+ is about really mobilising growth, thinking outside the box, not breaking your fiscal rules –

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Posted in News | Also tagged , and | 8 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Tim Farron – The phone-hacking stench will linger

By Nick T | Mon 11th July 2011 - 5:27 pm

Yesterday’s Independent on Sunday featured an op-ed by Liberal Democrat party president, Tim Farron, on the ongoing phone-hacking scandal. Tim makes the point that while both Labour and the Conservatives (Labservatives, anyone?) spent much time and effort ingratiating themselves with News International in all its guises, the Liberal Democrats resisted any such activity.

Here’s a sample:

Labour and the Conservatives spent decades cosying up to Rupert Murdoch and his cronies in the hope of an endorsement or a favourable headline. The Liberal Democrats did not.

What David Cameron, Tony Blair or Gordon Brown knew about the practices of the newspapers they sought to

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 10 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Chris Huhne – No reform now means bigger reform later

By Nick T | Fri 13th May 2011 - 3:55 pm

The Independent on Sunday featured an article by Chris Huhne, the energy secretary, arguing that, while the AV referendum result was clearly a setback for electoral reformers, the pressures that still exist within the system will at some point make change inevitable. Now that such a change has been delayed, Chris argues, when the time for reform does come again, it will be on a much bigger scale than the relatively modest reform that AV would have been.

Here’s a sample:

The problems to which electoral reformers are responding have not gone away and will continue to demand an answer. British society

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 14 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Vince Cable – No wonder the Tories are so scared of AV

By Nick T | Tue 3rd May 2011 - 4:25 pm

The Independent on Sunday featured an op-ed by business secretary Vince Cable which centred on similar themes to those in the piece Chris Huhne jointly authored in the Observer, namely why those opposed to the reactionary tendencies of the Conservative Party should vote Yes in Thursday AV referendum.

Here’s an excerpt from Vince’s piece:

AV undoubtedly poses a threat to the old tribal politics and to the Conservatives in particular, who have been best able to exploit it to advantage. The forces of reaction have been impressively marshalled on the battlefield. Not a single Conservative parliamentarian has broken ranks in an

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 26 Comments
Nick T

LibLink: Nick Clegg on the “lies, misinformation and deceit” of the No to AV campaign

By Nick T | Sun 24th April 2011 - 6:25 pm

Today’s Independent on Sunday has a much-publicised interview with deputy prime minister Nick Clegg in which he rebukes – in strong terms – the tactics of the No to AV campaign. He makes no visible attempt, either, to exclude the prime minister from his comments – not least because he is one of those guilty of repeating the untruth, for example, that the alternative vote will require expensive electronic counting machines. As the piece makes clear, some of this rhetoric is undoubtedly part of a strategy designed to aid the Liberal Democrats in various upcoming elections, but there is clearly …

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged and | 11 Comments
Mark Pack

The Observer endorses the Liberal Democrats

By Mark Pack | Sun 2nd May 2010 - 10:11 am

Following on from The Guardian‘s endorsement, The Observer becomes the second newspaper to back the LibDems:

The vital context for this election is the twin crises in our economy and our politics. On both issues most credit accrues to the Liberal Democrats. Their Treasury spokesman Vince Cable was prescient in warning of an unsustainable debt bubble; Nick Clegg pushed for greater openness about expenses long before the scandal erupted.

The Lib Dems have in recent years developed a habit of getting things right. They were first of the big three to embrace environmentalism, first to kick back against the assault on civil

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Posted in General Election | Also tagged and | 5 Comments
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